Romans Chapter 3:21-24

Now God doesn't look at our lives and go, well, that's okay. You've mostly been a good boy. You come in and I'll forgive you and you come into heaven.

No, no, no, no, no. He wouldn't be righteous if He did that. He doesn't lower the standard. He says, you're guilty. You deserve to be sentenced, but I will sentence myself. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. The law of God was never meant to save us. Instead, the law points to our weaknesses and our need for a savior. Today, Pastor David encourages us to look at our savior as he continues in the book of Romans chapter three with the teaching, The Great Equalizer.

Let's go now to David McGee. So Romans chapter three, an incredible book, a lot of deep theology and at the same time, really basic spiritual truths. So it's kind of neat in the sense that, you know, if you just came to the Lord or you're checking out the claims of Jesus, you can get a lot out of it. And if you've been walking with the Lord for 30, 40 years, you can get a lot out of it.

So something in here for everybody. Last week, we finished up with verse 21, but we're going to reread that verse into 22. So Romans chapter three, verse 21 reads, but now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Verse 22, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and own all who believe, for there is no difference. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, being justified.

Now, we talked about being justified a little bit before, but that was a while back, so let's touch base on it again. Justification, it's a theological term. It's also a legal term. It means, you know, being declared innocent, but more than that, it's not just, hey, you got off on a technicality because you weren't going to read the Miranda rights or there's a legal search and seizure or something like that.

It's much more than that. It's here being declared completely and utterly innocent. Verse 25, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood through faith to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance, God had passed over the sins that were previously committed. So we got some theological terms again that we need to deal with. So I don't want to just gloss over these terms and go, oh, propitiation. You all know what that is. You use it in sentences all the time. No, that's not one of those words that we use a lot, right? So let's talk a little bit about what it is. Propitiation, kind of similar to another word that you might be familiar with, atonement. Atonement's been broken down at onement. In other words, being at one with the Lord, atonement, propitiation, or I'm going to give you two definitions here, to cover or to wipe clean.

To cover or to wipe clean. That's kind of two different definitions. In the sense that in the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament, the word kaphar is used.

It's where we get our word for cover, okay? So you've got this cover concept happening in the Hebrew scriptures and kaphar pops up in Genesis chapter three when it talks about Adam and Eve being covered with the skins of animals. And people say, well, is Adam and Eve saved? Are they in heaven?

I believe they are because look what you have. You have the shedding of an innocent blood of an animal and you've got a covering, a kaphar, atonement, atonement, propitiation, if you will. Now, also kaphar pops up again, I think it's in Genesis chapter six, when it talks about Noah covered the ark in pitch. So covered and of course they were able to be saved through the ark, a bunch of pictures there. But so with this covering that was on the outside.

So there's this concept of being covered that's important. And this concept of atonement, propitiation, atonement was, obviously if you were a Jewish person of that day, you really didn't need that explained because they had Yom Kippur. And that is the day of atonement.

On the day of atonement, something very special kind of happened. What would happen is there was two goats. One goat would be sacrificed as a sin offering on this day of atonement. And it would be sacrificed. The other goat, the high priest would take his hands, place them on the goat and in a spiritual sense, transform or transmit the sins of the people onto this goat and say, I placed upon this goat the sins of the people, sins of the nation, et cetera, et cetera. And the goat would be set out into the wilderness basically to die outside of the camp.

A lot of pictures there. This is where we get our word for scapegoat. So this goat took the fall, if you will, for the sins of the people for that year. And it was repeated every year, every year, every year, every year, every year, this day of atonement. But see, Jesus came and died once and for all. It was the final act, if you will, of atonement. And Jesus, as painful as it is to think of this concept, is our scapegoat and says, I will pay the price for your sins. Place your sins upon me.

I'll pay the price. It's an amazing thing when you think about it. And to think about the fact that He did that just to give each person the opportunity to be forgiven. He did it for everybody knowing that some would reject Him, would reject the offer. I know there's some people say, well, I'm going to earn my way to heaven. Well, that's unbiblical. Modern day Judaism says it's based on good work or mitzvot.

That's unbiblical. According to the Hebrew scriptures, you don't see them saying you can be saved by works. As a matter of fact, a good verse to share with somebody that thinks they're saved by works or can be saved by works, Leviticus 17, verse 11 says, for the life of the flesh is in the blood. And I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul. You say, well, how did modern day Judaism come to understand they can be saved by works?

Glad you asked. What happened when the temple was destroyed in 70 AD, when the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem, they were all mourning because the temple was destroyed. You couldn't have any more sacrifices. And if you could only be forgiven through the sacrifices, then you've got a major problem. Now, of course, we believe and we know, and the Bible teaches that 40 years earlier, Jesus had made the final sacrifice for us that we could be forgiven.

And then he did away with the old structure, right? So the sacrifice of blood and bills for the, and different animals for forgiveness of sins. But what happened at that moment, a rabbi runs through the streets and he says, we can be now saved through mitzvot, through good works.

And everybody said, okay. He didn't base that on any scripture. Again, looking at Leviticus 17 and 11, it's unscriptural. But again, where we say, well, that, that means modern day Judaism is off track. Let's understand there's many Christian movements that are say, yeah, through Jesus, but are very works oriented and say, yeah, it is about works. You are saved by works. And so really that's the mitzvot thing again, but understand God being willing to place the punishment for sins on his son and his son being able to re willingly receive that upon himself.

It's just, it's amazing. You know, I have children, of course, as a parent, there's right or wrong. When your child gets into trouble, the first thing you want is to get them out of trouble. And of course, you know, we, we want them to learn things as believers and not repeat it, but we want them to get them out right or wrong.

We want to get them out of trouble. And yet God in his mercy and his love, Jesus in his mercy and his love placed himself right in the middle of trouble. Not, not just taking the hit for what he had done, taking the hit for what he hadn't done and becoming our scapegoat.

Man, this is, this is the good news. We see the love of God in that, but imagine would God allow his son to suffer a horrible cruel execution to provide yet another way to heaven? Obviously the answer's no. Would Jesus, knowing he was one of the many ways, placed himself in that position to suffer, to die, to provide yet another way? Well, it doesn't make sense, but it does if you look at it and go, well, there was no other way. And Jesus did what he did because he felt like there was no other way to heaven. There was no other way for us to have forgiveness. Then it begins to make sense. Then you think about the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus says, Hey, if there's any other way, Father, let this cup pass for me, but not what I want, but what you want. And he gladly, the Bible says, endured the shame and the pain that was set before him that we could be forgiven. And yet some people reject him.

That's amazing to me. You know, I have a garden, love the garden, and I love to cook. I get caught up in cooking. I can't, doesn't seem like I can throw together like a 15 minute meal, but I get caught up sometimes. There's that moment after I've put all this love and preparation and all these herbs and spices and stuff into the food where, hey, you know, it's time to eat. And I know what I feel like when people don't show up. And, you know, I mean, hey, it's time to eat. Come on, it's time to eat.

Come on. Because I've put so much love and so much care, I want people to receive it. I want people to enjoy it. I want people to be blessed by it.

And I'm a little disturbed when they're not. Think about God, friend. Think about the Lord. Thank you for listening to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. We'll return to David's teaching in just a moment. The tragedy in Benghazi, the bombings in Boston, and the current unrest in Egypt are all vivid accounts of terrorism. Each time an event like this occurs, it often causes us to respond with fear. But it doesn't have to, because God knows your future, and you can too. With David McGee's teaching entitled, Know Your Future, Be Immune to Terrorism, you'll come to understand the realities of radical Islam while rejoicing in God's promises for your future.

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To help support Cross the Bridge and receive your CD or DVD copy of Know Your Future, call 877-458-5508, or go online to crossthebridge.com. Friend, do you have a heart for the lost? I invite you to send us the first names of your lost loved ones, and we will have hundreds of people praying for them. Just go to crossthebridge.com and click on the prayer button, and you'll enter their name. And if you put your name and email address in there, I'll send you free resources to equip you to pray and teach you how to reach your lost loved ones. Please, don't wait. This is so important. So please, again, go to crossthebridge.com and click on the prayer button and send us the first names of lost loved ones.

We'll send you some free information, and together we can partner to deliver the good news of Jesus Christ to the whole world, the whole book for the whole world. And now let's return to Pastor David's verse-by-verse teaching in the book of Romans. There's a story that, it's a great story.

I think it's true, not positive, but it so demonstrates this. There was a college professor, had a student named Steve. Steve was a really in-shape athlete, and they were getting towards the end of the year. And the professor sat down with Steve and he said, Steve, how many, and the guy was well-liked. He said, how many pushups can you do? And he said, I can do 200. He goes, well, how do you know you can do 200? He says, do 200 every night. He said, can you do 300? And he goes, I don't know. He said, well, have you ever done 300? He said, no, not at one time. He said, well, could you do 300 if you did them in sets of 10? And he said, well, I don't know.

I think I can. And he said, no, I need you to commit. And he said, I'm going to do something. I need you to make the commitment. And Steve said, I think I can do the 300.

I think I can do it. He says, OK. Well, I want you to do them Friday. So Friday, it's last class of the day, last day of the week.

Everybody is excited about that. And the professor comes in, he has these incredible donuts up there filled with cream and all sorts of stuff, not just the normal ones, you know, the glazed, which are really delicious. But he's got all these donuts.

And he walks up to the first student. This girl, we'll call her Cindy and say, Cindy, would you like a donut? And Cindy goes, yes, I would like a donut. And the professor turns to Steve and says, Steve, would you please do 10 push-ups that Cindy can receive her donut?

So Steve does the 10 push-ups. Cindy gets her donut. And he comes to the next student and says, would you like a donut? She says, yes. He goes, Steve, would you please do 10 push-ups that she can get her donut? She says, yes.

So this goes on for a little while. And the professor comes to another guy who's kind of athletic. And he says, would you like to receive a donut? And he says, well, it depends.

He says, what does it depend on? He says, can I do my own push-ups? And the professor says, no. See, because Steve has the only perfect score in the class. Everybody else has either not taken a test or failed a test or missed a class or anything like that.

Steve is the only one in here that hasn't missed a class that's gotten 100 on every test. So he's the only one that can do push-ups. And the guy says, well, if that's the case, I don't want it.

I don't want it. Then the professor turns to Steve and he goes, Steve, do the 10 push-ups. The guy says, I said I didn't want it if I couldn't do them. He says, that doesn't matter. Steve is doing the push-ups to give you the opportunity to have the donut. Steve does the 10 push-ups. The professor sits the donut on the edge of the desk and says, it's yours to enjoy.

You can choose not to have it. But he paid the price for your donut. As time goes on, some students drifted in. They're looking, they're going, wow, what's going on? Some more people came in and a professor looks around.

There's 34 people now. In the classroom. Steve's starting to get wore out. He's sweating.

He's hurting. And by this time he goes up, professor goes up next to him and says, would you like a donut? They said, no, no. Steve, would you do 10 push-ups so that they can have a donut that they will not enjoy?

But this time Steve is really struggling. Somebody else tries to come in the classroom. They go, no, no, no, no, don't come in. And Steve says, no, let them come in.

Let them come in. And the guy didn't understand what was going on. This new guy, the professor said, hey, you want a donut? And the guy said, sure. Steve does, slowly, with his arms shaking now, the 10 push-ups so that this guy can get the donut.

See that Steve guy was the only one with a perfect score. And he paid the price, not just for those who wanted the donuts, but even for those who didn't want them. And see, that's what Jesus did. He died for your sins, for my sins. And He died for everybody's sins. But some people will enjoy the price that was paid and some people will not. But Jesus still paid that price. And when you begin to understand this of the immensity of the pain and the shame and the heartache that Jesus went through for us, you begin to think of some people just leaving that gift sitting on their desk. It begins to break your heart.

And yet that's what some people do. They leave that gift sitting on their desk. God set forth as a propitiation, as an atonement. How ungrateful I must have seemed in my life when I was rejecting that gift.

So precious a gift, so incredible a gift. And it was like I was saying no thank you to God. Can you really say no thank you to God? You can say no. No thank you. Jesus died, but I don't want forgiveness.

I know He went through all this pain and heartache and shame for me, but I don't want it. That's amazing. Cover one more verse, verse 26 says, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He, capital H, speaking of Jesus, might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Interesting thing here, we're talking about being justified. We're talking about this propitiation, hellisterion in the Greek, which literally it's kind of interesting. The same Greek word that's used for mercy seat, justifier, atonement. Here's the interesting thing in mercy seat.

What's a mercy seat? There was the Ark of the Covenant. Most of us have been contaminated by seeing the movies. Raiders of the Lost Ark where it comes out and melts people. But there was this Ark of the Covenant that was in the Holy of Holies. And there were several things that were kept in the Ark of the Covenant, the blossoming rod and some of the manna. But anyway, the Ten Commandments were in there. And the Ark of the Covenant represented the presence of God. And in this Ark were these Ten Commandments. But there was a lid on this box, a covering called the mercy seat, the mercy seat.

Covering the law was the mercy seat. See, any of us can be justified through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the justifier.

We can be the justified, just as we had never done it. God doesn't look at our lives and go, well, that's okay, you've mostly been a good boy. You come in and I'll forgive you and you come into heaven.

No, no, no, no, no. He wouldn't be righteous if he did that. He doesn't lower the standard. He says, you're guilty, you deserve to be sentenced, but I will sentence myself amazingly enough. Isaiah 53 says this, verse 5 and 6, but he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped and we were healed.

And all of us have strayed away like sheep. We have left God's past to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the guilt and sins of us all. See, God wants to bless us in this life. He wants to see us set free. He wants to see us cast off the weight of sin that would hold us down. But I think if you'll go with the donut analogy, I think a lot of times we have all this in Jesus Christ. We only take a taste. We leave most of the blessings on the table, if you will.

All forgiveness, yes, but really freedom from materialism, self-centeredness, all these things we often leave on the table and we miss a lot of the blessings that God desires to give us. I heard a story one time, a guy went on his honeymoon and really excited, really nice place, got the honeymoon suite, goes to the counter and he's there and says, I'm Mr. So-and-so. Oh yes, you're 213, 213, awesome. He goes in with his bride and he opens the door and his heart just sinks because he looks in, it's a small little room and his wife, she's being upbeat. Oh, this is fun, this is great. He's trying to act upbeat. He's like, oh man, this is not what I thought it was. There's a little couch and a little chair there. There's not even a bed in there but he pulls out the couch, opens one door, there's a couple of doors. He opens one door and there's sheets in there and they're tired. It's been a long day so he gets the sheets out, makes the bed, they crash but deep inside, he's upset. He resolves to go speak with the guy the next morning.

Next morning, he gets up early before his new wife wakes up. He goes down to the desk and he goes, man, I'm so upset. The guy said, what's wrong? He goes, I was supposed to get the honeymoon suite. He said, you're in 213, I think, Mr. Jordan. He goes, yeah, I am in 213.

He said, well, the 213 is the honeymoon suite. And he goes, no, it's just a small little room with a little pull-out couch, room 213 is. The guy said, he was confused for a second and then he said, sir, when you went into that room, did you open the door to the rear on the left? He said, no, I opened a little closet to get some sheets and blankets out.

It was on the right, I believe. He said, did you ever open the door to the rear to the left? He goes, no. He goes, Mr. Jordan, you and your wife, it sounds like you slept in the entrance to the honeymoon suite. I'll walk with you back to the room. He accompanied me back to the room and got back to the entrance foyer, opened the door to the rear to the left and opened the door on just a gorgeous room, sunken tub at the foot of the bed, a huge king bed, looking out over a waterfall, candles that had melted beside the bath, chocolates laid out. Mr. Jordan had missed out on all the honeymoon suite and had to offer.

I tell that story to say this. How much of God do we miss out on? Because we stay in the foyer and we cling to these things that would hold us back instead of casting these things off so we could be set free to sail. Friend, I don't know what's holding you back. Your reason for not more fully committing to the Lord or serving God or what's holding you back from coming to Him and asking Him to forgive you of your sins. But friend, whatever it is, it's not worth it.

It's not worth Him. God loves you. God has always loved you. He wants to see you set free. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name, amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If this was your first time praying that prayer with Pastor David, we would love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ. Also, if you've been blessed by Cross the Bridge Ministries, would you consider supporting us with a financial gift? When you call with your gift, make sure to ask them about this month's special offer entitled, Know Your Future, Be Immune to Terrorism.

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